{"id":781079,"date":"2026-05-08T03:26:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T03:26:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/781079\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T03:26:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T03:26:17","slug":"appeals-court-dismisses-qualified-immunity-claim-in-case-where-harris-county-deputies-searched-wrong-home-houston-public-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/781079\/","title":{"rendered":"Appeals court dismisses qualified immunity claim in case where Harris County deputies\u2019 searched wrong home \u2013 Houston Public Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\"Constable<\/p>\n

Janett Avalos \/ Houston Public Media <\/p>\n

In a rare move, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals this week struck down qualified immunity claims stemming from a 2024 case in which Harris County constable deputies entered the wrong home without knocking and held a couple at gunpoint. <\/p>\n

The entry happened in 2022 after a woman called police several times about a person knocking on the back door of her southeast Houston home in the middle of the night. A deputy had already visited the woman\u2019s home earlier, but returned to the incorrect house with two other deputies upon responding.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Hello, Houston!<\/a> daily newsletter to get local reports like this delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Houston-area police entered a home without a warrant and held an innocent couple at gunpoint, federal lawsuit says<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The deputies named in a federal lawsuit allegedly entered the wrong home, found Tyler Harrington and his wife asleep in bed, and retreated back to the entrance before entering the home again with guns drawn. <\/p>\n

The ruling against the three Harris County Precinct 2 deputies came down in the Louisiana court this week, when judges dismissed excessive force claims brought by the Civil Rights Corps but reinstated claims that the second entry was unlawful.<\/p>\n

Upon the first time deputies entered the wrong home, one officer questioned whether dispatchers provided the correct address to the deputies. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d one officer allegedly responded. <\/p>\n

Rather than confirming the home address, according to the fifth circuit ruling, the officers exited, re-entered and seized Harrington and his wife. <\/p>\n

\u201cIndeed, they did not confirm the address with dispatchers until after they had re-entered the home, awakened the Harringtons, and questioned them at gunpoint,\u201d according to the ruling. \u201cApparent consent therefore did not justify the officers\u2019 second warrantless entry, search and seizure.\u201d <\/p>\n

The fifth circuit court held that officers should have immediately terminated the search once the officers questioned whether they had the correct address. Qualified immunity doesn\u2019t \u201cprovide a safe harbor for police to remain in a residence after they are aware they have entered the wrong residence by mistake,\u201d according to the ruling. <\/p>\n

The court also struck down an excessive force claim arising from allegations that the officers woke up Harrington by screaming at him and holding him at gunpoint, and held that Harrington\u2019s fear didn\u2019t rise to the level of a constitutional violation. <\/p>\n

The civil rights lawsuit seeks a declaration that deputies violated Harrington\u2019s constitutional rights.<\/p>\n

Civil Rights Corps Attorney Ale Clark-Ansani said the court\u2019s decision to strike the excessive force claim underscores how qualified immunity \u201ccontinues to shield police from accountability.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are eager to continue litigating the case and ensuring that Mr. Harrington receives at least some measure of justice for the trauma that he has suffered,\u201d Clark-Ansani said in a statement Thursday. <\/p>\n

An attorney representing the deputies could not immediately be reached for comment. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Janett Avalos \/ Houston Public Media In a rare move, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals this…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":781080,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5130],"tags":[279353,17239,250903,6386,319649,4345,425,50,358,3187],"class_list":{"0":"post-781079","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-civil-rights-lawsuit","9":"tag-federal-lawsuit","10":"tag-fifth-circuit-court-of-appeals","11":"tag-harris-county","12":"tag-harris-county-constable-precinct-2","13":"tag-houston","14":"tag-local","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-texas","17":"tag-tx"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116536828721736869","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=781079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/781080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=781079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=781079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=781079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}